Since the announcement that the Tribune has been sold--again--I have received numerous calls and folks have stopped me in the stores and restaurants to ask about it.

They wanted to know if I was going to stay and continue this column and the 50 and 25 Years Ago stuff, which they said they enjoy.

Well, I’m getting old, and actually I’m getting a little tired and burned out after 38 years of going way beyond the call of duty, being dedicated and loyal like the late Tribune editor Cletus Brock taught me.

Sometimes I just want to go home, and as my double first cousin Doris Price Rhodes of Goldsboro says, get inside, turn around and look out the door and tell the world to kiss my butt, and shut the door.

Anyway, whether I close that door or not, I do appreciate all your comments and support over the years.

Janice Rogers of Dudley, whose son, Randy Rogers is the Arrington fire chief, is one of those who called. She told me she takes the Goldsboro News-Argus, but she loves the Tribune and “the stuff you put in there.”

Janice said that when I was in the hospital for several weeks last fall, that “the Tribune just wasn’t the same, not as good.”

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One lady, Charlotte Price Goodwin of Folly Beach, South Carolina, called. She is originally from Seven Springs and says she loves to get her Tribune to read about homefolks.

Charlotte said that she likes this column and the 50 and 25 Years Ago stuff.

She said her husband, Tim Goodwin, a retired DuPont employee, is a city councilman in Folly Beach , which is about 10 minutes from Charleston .

I learned that Charlotte ’s son is Curtis Barwick, whose photo I took many times when he was a FFA student at Southern Wayne High School. He is employed with a swine operation, Coharrie Farms, and is a past president of the N.C. Pork Council.

“He loves them hogs,” Charlotte said.

She continued, “I have always taken the Tribune, so now, don’t you quit writing because if you do, the Tribune won’t be the same.”

Many other folks have made me feel good when they have said things like this. Thanks, y’all!

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Up there in the photo is Gene Sasser and his wife, Susie, with pretty four little registered Jack Russell puppies that Gene raises. He donated one to the recent Rones Chapel United Methodist Church fundraising auction.

Gene, a former Wayne County sheriff’s deputy, is now a Duplin County turkey producer and lives near Rones Chapel.

His son Billy is in the Coast Guard and has done well, even went to England to do some work with the Coast Guard, or something similar over there and personally met the Queen of England.

Anyway, every year Gene donates a Jack Russell puppy to the Rones Chapel event. It’s the only auction I’ve been to where a puppy is sold.

So, if you want a Jack Russell, Gene is the man to see.

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Not so long ago I was walking with state Rep. Louis M. Pate Jr. about the old passenger train days in Mount Olive .

Louis is working with some kind of state group to try to get rail service back in eastern North Carolina .

I told Lewis that when I was a little boy, I would ride my bicycle from my Grandma Bailey Bland’s house on Maple Street to the train station, across from where the fire station is now, to watch people get on and off the passenger trains.

One distinct memory I have is that of a solider I talked with. He had on an Army green uniform, the wool-looking kind they wore back then, and an Army cap, not a baseball type but the long kind that folded flat. He said he was heading to New Jersey to an Army base.

I have always loved trains, having grown up in Mount Olive where the railroad runs through the middle of town.

Louis did some research and said the first passenger train service on the Weldon to Wilmington Railroad, which ran through Mount Olive , began in 1840. The last passenger train on the then Atlantic Coast Line Railroad came through town on March 1, 1968.

There used to be about a 9 p.m. train that came flying into town so fast it was called the “Shoo Fly.”

When I was about 16 me and this girl—who was a sandwich short of a picnic—rode the “Azalea Festival Special” train to the Azalea Festival at Wilmington . It cost a dollar, and we were broke after paying the fare.

She was a few years older than me, and in downtown Wilmington she got up with three sailors in their white uniforms and told me she would back in about an hour.

Well, I was naive and thought she was just making new friends. But she did return about an hour and half later to our designated meeting place, a corner restaurant that I can still see in my mind. And, she had two $20 bills—and we had a ball at the Azalea Festival.

I would like to ride an “Azalea Festival Special” once more.

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TILL NEXT WEEK, and thanks for reading this stuff:

--This Faison man says the three fastest means of communication are telephone, television and tell-a-woman.

--This Albertson man says he killed five flies last week—three males and two females. How’d he know? “Well, the three males were sitting on a case of beer and the two females were on the phone!” he said.

--This Rones Chapel man says you might be a Duplin County redneck if you don’t stop at rest stops on the Interstate because you have an empty milk jug in the car.

--And Ruth--you remember Ruth who went to Seven Springs High School --was in history class in the 10th grade one day when the teacher gave a pop quiz.

“Can someone tell me what freedom of the press means?” the teacher asked.

“I can teacher,” Ruth says raising her hand. “It means you buy no-iron clothes.”